


Pink

by inspectorwired



Category: Undertale (Video Game)
Genre: Angst, Gen, Kind of heavy, Suicide, kind of my take on "everyone lives" but not really
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-01-01
Updated: 2016-01-01
Packaged: 2018-05-11 00:03:06
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,661
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5606017
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/inspectorwired/pseuds/inspectorwired
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>He stayed, down in the abandoned world of the race that had been trapped underground, now free and gone. There shouldn't be anyone else coming there, but the soft sound of footsteps coming closer wasn't his imagination.</p><p>"Hello, mister flower. Why am I not dead yet?"</p>
            </blockquote>





	Pink

  
The sound he heard wasn't his imagination.  
  
Strange as it was, someone's small feet were tapping against the stone floor and leaves of the ruins, getting closer. With the giant, monochrome wall, pulsating with magic, broken and now gone, there was no reason for anyone to come here anymore.  
  
He suspected, though, who it might be; the same person that was still sometimes paying him a visit, coming there with stories of the surface or slices of his mother's pie or just moments of silence, breathing in the stale smell of dirt and bugs, and playing with his leaves. They did come down there occasionally, no matter how many times he warned them to stop. But they left just yesterday, so he didn't think they'd be back.  
  
They shouldn't be here anyway; they shouldn't even keep inconveniencing themself remembering him, as it didn't matter, he did not care anymore. So why would they? It was stupid, so naive and human that it was laughable.  
  
But even if it's not true, it would still be nice, he decided, if he became completely convinced that not caring was something he himself was accounted for, not just the convenience of not having a soul. It would make him feel a little better and less helpless, he thinks. Though, in all honesty, it would be infinitely better, if thinking of something could make him feel anything at all.  
  
And it isn't that he was sad, either. He was just bored. Empty.  
He almost didn't even have the motivation to want to play anymore.  
  
Yes, if he had to describe it as feeling anything at all, it would most certainly be boredom - he lost a best friend to play with, and the whole underground with another. He wasn't sad but it wasn't very fun, being a flower.  
  
Sometimes he dreamed of wilting, of making, spreading his vines across the whole underground then shrinking all that is him into a little imaginary box, wanted to grow and shrivel and dry, to live and die like the other plants all around him, as if reminding him that nothing ever changes, as he's already been dead for a while. Sometimes he wished for something to happen, anything at all.  
  
So when the slightly echoing sound of little footsteps got closer, making him see a shadow of a child that nearly approached his bed of yellow petals, everything he wanted was for it to leave. They wouldn't be changing anything that way, it was just annoying. They'd just make everything even more boring after they're gone, just like each time before.  
  
The words stayed for some time after he spoke them, the same ones as he always did; the ringing of his childlike voice remaining floating in the air between the specks of dust under faint sunlight and cracked walls of the ruins.  
  
"Don't you have anything better to do?"  
  
  
  
The person that responded, however, wasn't his friend; wasn't Frisk but someone else entirely. The shivering child was looking around at the strange surroundings, looking something close to betrayed.  
  
"Hello, mister flower. Why am I not dead yet?"  
  
He stayed frozen in place for a while, not knowing what to say to this. In his mind stayed frozen, things like questions, inquiring of why they even wanted and tried such a thing, why would a small child like them even think about this...  
  
But he didn't. Asking this wouldn't make sense, and wouldn't induce an answer that makes some, either. He remembered his best friend, and the way Chara's expression remained blank, as if wordlessly confirming a statement, every time anyone brought it up; he has been well aware for quite a bit of time that you don't talk about these things. There's nothing to say.  
  
So he said something else.  
  
"Howdy! I'm Flowey, Flowey the flower! So I see you're new to the underground. How silly! Nothing ever happens around here anymore. Why don't you go home, friend?", he tried instead.  
  
The child just stared at him, looking desperate.

"Why? Tell me, please."  
  
"Golly! You certainly do seem lost. Want me to help you find your way around here?", he smiled at the kid again, bouncing slightly up and down.  
  
They shook their head slowly.  
  
"You see, there's nothing down here, It's juust you and me! You understand this, right?", he continued still. "So, if you wanna get out of here, all you need to do is follow that road, right in front of ya, all through the ruins 'till you get to the broken barrier! Get it?"  
  
It didn't have much effect. Seeing that they sat on the ground, staring blankly into space, he stopped talking and got a bit closer. They didn't seem to care.  
  
"I don't want to."  
  
"Just go home, won't cha?"  
  
"Don't want to."  
  
"Come on, it's not that far! Follow the road straight ahead, out of the ruins; I'll help ya, come on-"  
  
"Why didn't I die, mister flower? I should've... they said so. Maybe if I jump again... but the legends only said I'd disappear. I don't want to disappear, not like this, I wanna be gone-"  
  
"Why are you being stupid?" He was getting angry. Why the hell were they throwing their life away? They had one! It didn't make any sense.  
  
The child shrugged, slowly lifting their shoulders and lowering them again. They didn't speak at all for a while, the two of them sitting on the ground and soft yellow petals. This was really annoying. What was he supposed to do here?  
  
The silence that loomed over them like a thick cloud of smoke bugged him so much, made him want to shout and snap it out of them, wish for it to become a substance just so that he could cut through it and make it stop. For them to just stop and think for a little. Was this child really that much of a goddamned idiot?  
  
He might have been able to only feel slight irritation, without a trace of any real emotions, but he still remembered. Exactly how it felt like, he remembered his best friend, could still reminiscence hot tears making his cheeks wet and his head feel heavy on his shoulders, his heart skipping beats and hitting him loudly in the chest with worry. He could remember being sad and hating the world for making Chara hate it back.  
  
Why were they here?  
  
"Flowey, right? Sorry, but I'm not leaving. Maybe if i stay here, the legend will become true."  
  
"You idiot. It doesn't work that way."  
  
"Maybe.", they say, shrugging, "I still won't leave. I haven't got anything else to do, anyway."  
  
The bed of flowers seemed too small and uncomfortable, too flat, made him itch and shift uneasily and want to try reaching and picking at something ugly, without knowing where it might be. Was it inside him?  Or around them? In the damp air, or the hole in the mountain where they fell, or beneath the roots of the thin grass that they keep plucking out of the earth, absentmindedly,  
  
"You should go back. You just wanna live, right buddy?"  
They shake their head again;  
  
Was it in the pink skin of the scar that didn't heal properly, or the face with too many wrinkles from facial expressions they shouldn't have had to make, or the fact that he knows that they couldn't have stayed alive if they didn't want to; it's impossible to survive the plummet from the top of mountain Ebott without being determined to live.  
  
"I don't. What do i have up there anyway, to be happy about?"  
  
"Staying alive, isn't that so?", he just said, seeing the kid flinch at the words. It hurt, and it shouldn't have; he didn't feel anything but he still didn't want this to be happening.  
  
"I don't want to be alive. I don't want to be anything, I don't want to feel anything."  
  
He sighs.  
  
"Well, gosh darn it, gotta admit it to ya then. Not feeling anything? Wanna know how it feels? It feels horrible, ya know, friend? You actually came here 'cause you weren't feeling enough, didn't cha? Not feeling anything is empty. It's sad."  
  
"How can you know something like that?"  
  
"'Cause I'm not alive anymore. Ya really wanna be something like this? Wanna know how this is like, huh?"  
  
The look on his face was too much; the look that the kid had on their own was enough of an answer.  
  
It wasn't cold there, but there was some sort of coldness hanging around them, in the earth, inside themselves, across the dead and abandoned world of the race that had been trapped and now free and gone, leaving just them behind.  
  
The child still didn't seem calmed down, but they shifted a bit and relaxed their shoulders, like they found the fact reassuring. Someone knew a bit of what was it like to feel like they did. They still seemed sad. Maybe that's what was so different about them; they didn't seem angry at the world, just really sad.  
  
He didn't ask anything about the kind their world was, up there, on the surface. They didn't talk about anything like it; it was likely too painful and ugly to do any good at all, it would just make them remember. But he tried asking about the good things. Like the ones that made them happy.  
  
"Come on, ya must have felt good things too? You did, didn't ya?"  
They shrugged again, unsure.  
  
He smiled. "You know what. Wanna see a trick?"  
  
They nodded, despite not looking very expectant.  
  
He reached out and pulled out their soul from inside the child. A little pink heart floated in the air before them.  
  
"See that? That's your soul, the very culmination of your being.", he started explaining. The child looked at it in awe.  
  
"It's glowing."  
  
They stopped themself in trying to get close and touch it, but instead just moved around a bit, the little heart swinging left and right in the dark, inside a frame of white.  
  
"It's pretty..."  
  
"It represents your emotions, eeverything you feel; it's what makes you you. See how it's pretty? It's cause most of it's made up of things that make you happy. You can think of something like this, can't ya?"  
  
They smiled shyly. "I guess... My dog. He's my best friend."  
  
A few seconds of silence, then they continued, a bit more confident than they were a moment before.  
  
"T-then Shayla, she gives me candy sometimes. I like the licorice ones quite a bit. And the top of the tree behind the house. When i climb up, they can never find me there. Chocolate milk. Scratch'n'sniff stickers. Volleyball."  
  
They were smiling now.  
  
"There ya go, then!", he said, starting to bounce again. "Ya just need a little friendliness, don't ya?  
  
"I...guess"  
  
They stopped to think about this for a bit.  
  
"Yeah. I like my soul, it's pretty things." They turned to look at him. "Oh! what's your soul like, Flowey?"  
  
"Well! I don't have one."  
  
"Why?"  
  
"'Cause I'm not alive, ya know? That's why I don't feel anything.", he admitted.  
  
"Oh." They were silent now, thoughtfully staring somewhere far away from where they sat. "That's sad..."  
  
He didn't like the look on their face.  
  
"Oh, wait!", he said, his tone changing, not allowing the kid to start thinking about bad things again. "These things you like, do they look a little like this?"  
  
He gathered up his vines and started moving them in the air above them. They looked at it, confused, until they saw the shadows below, under the faint light coming from the top of the mountain. If you looked at it carefully, the shadow was shaped like a puppy. Then it shook a little, as the vines started moving again, making an ice cream cone when they settled.

The child was starting to smile, then reached out to touch the ground with their finger. Before they could touch it, though, the picture changed again, making a winking smiley face.

They were giggling now, as Flowey continued to make the shadows into the shapes of nice things. They raised their head to look at him.  
  
"I like it a lot!"  
  
A vine arched in the air to poke them in the cheek, swinging around and disappearing again.  
  
"Hehe~."  
  
"I'm glad I met you, Flowey.", they said, smiling.  
  
"Oh, golly! Well, I'm glad we met too, friend!" He gave them another wink.  
  
"And... I'm sure there are other nice people like you and Spotty and Shayla on the surface, too. I'm sure that..." They paused. "Well. I should probably go soon, right?"  
  
He smiled. "That's right!"  
  
They didn't say much of anything else before they stood up from the grass. For a moment, they seemed unsure of something. Then they straightened up from the grass and dirt where they were sitting for the past while, having decided on something important, it seemed.  
  
They were determined.  
  
"So, i just have to keep walking forward 'till I reach where the barrier was, right?", they asked.  
  
He nodded, moving the whole body in the process, his leaves swaying a little even after he's finished. "That's right! You remembered correctly, didn't ya? Good luck then!"

"Bye bye, Flowey."  
  
He waited for the kid to turn around, watching their back when they began walking toward the exit, glancing at him one last time after starting to move again.  
  
He stayed like this for a few seconds, looking them go.  
What was he supposed to think of all this?  
  
So he managed to save a single child that would be dead if they hadn't met him. In this cruel world, was that supposed to be good? Was he supposed to feel better about himself, or was this really just another way of elaborate self gratification and convincing himself that he's not as broken as he didn't want to be afraid that he is? A way to show the universe, or maybe just himself, that even empty shell like him could do something good..?  
  
Was this brave or pathetic, he wondered?  
  
"Oh, yeah", the kid glanced back at him again, then turned around just before they would exit the place towards the ruins, and made several quick steps toward him, going back, "Just one more thing."  
  
"Gosh, i wonder what it is!", he snapped himself out of the thinking and smiled silly at the kid who was smiling back at him, tears forming in their eyes.  
  
Wait.  
  
He didn't like something about this at all.  
  
"I should thank you properly,", they continued, "for making me happy for a bit."  
  
They held their hands over their chest and reached inside.  
  
He could see it clearly, every bit, even if he was only able to watch in horror, not having the time to react until after he saw the pink glow.  
  
He could see the smile of the tear-streaked face of the child whose name he didn't get to hear, the palm of their hand, moving the little heart-shaped thing towards his dead petals and vines;  
  
They pushed their soul inside Flowey.  
  
The invisible colors exploded, making him feel everything at once, both the kid's and his own emotions while silently cursing the convenience of a soul; as now lifeless body of the child in front of him hit the ground with a thud he could almost hear it twice.  
  
It didn't shatter and spill into dust like monsters' do, but rather just stayed there, continuing to endlessly stare with those blank eyes, keeping a ghost of a smile they had just a moment before.  
  
When Frisk came down there again, carrying with them a slice of pie and a proudly solved Rubik's cube, they found their friend shaking, curled up into a ball of white fur on the flowerbed beside the body of a child they didn't recognize, his soft cries echoing through the empty underground.


End file.
